My Life. My Views

The PepsiCo Chief Ms. Indra Nooyi, emphasized that everyone should cultivate a global mindset and a local insight in order to make a mark in this globalized economy. Ms Nooyi, who is acclaimed by Forbes magazine as one of the world’s powerful women, made a special appearance and delivered key note address at the Yale – Great Lakes Center for Management Research’s International Conference on “Global Mindset, Indian Roots” held in Chennai.

Ms Nooyi, who epitomizes the theme “Global mindset, Indian Roots”, felt that it was time for academia and research to come with more contemporary methods of ‘predicting future behavior’ of consumers by observation, by cultural focus and by ethnography rather than using the traditional methods of qualitative research.

Ms Nooyi commended Great Lakes Institute of Management for having an excellent international focus. Ms Nooyi said she was very much impressed to see Chinese language being a part of curriculum, a feat which even eminent universities doesn’t have. Ms Nooyi, alumni and also a Board member of Yale, commended Great Lakes Institute of management for partnering with Yale. She said that ‘Yale’ is very dear to her heart and she would extend her support for strengthening this initiative.

Dr Venkat R. Krishnan, the Director of Yale – Great Lakes center for Management Research, speaking on the occasion, said that the center aims to promote, facilitate and advance India-centric management related research which contributes to the development of basic and applied knowledge in the field of management. He said that this conference will act as a bridge that links scholars around the globe with India as a common interest.

Apart from Ms Indra Nooyi, several illustrious thought leaders and professors of the world shared their views in the conference. Dr Seenu V. Srinivasan of Stanford University, who is regarded as world’s foremost authority in marketing research, expounded the technique of a using ‘conjoint analysis’ as a method to predict future behavior. Prof Paul Prabhakar, Dean of FSU spoke about the DNA of a sustainable business enterprise. Dr Sudhakar Balachandran, who was awarded the outstanding faculty award at Columbia Business School, spoke on Share holder value maximization. There were many interesting case studies/talks by Dr Suj Krishnaswamy, Dr Sridhar Moorthy, Dr Rama Shankar, Dr Siva Nathan, Dr Ashok Vasudevan and Dr Neharika Vohra. Paper presentations from many well known schools like Indian Institutes of Management – Ahmedabad & Bangalore, Indian School of Business-Hyderabad, IIT-Khargpur, IIT- Chennai etc also attracted the audience. Prof Sriram, Executive Director of Great Lakes thanked Ms Indra Nooyi and all other distinguished professors for making such thought provoking speeches.